Good Dog
by Rose-Divine
Summary: Sometimes, Sirius wishes that he could stay a dog forever. Nonexplicit SiriusRemus slash.


**Disclaimer:** Nope, I own nothing.

**Author's Notes:** Wow! My first completed/edited/posted fanfic in seven months! I'm alive! Warnings for SLASH and possible AU because I decided to disregard any sort of actual timeline and replace it with fluff. Beware of awkward tenses, and I'd love feed back on that and my characterization! Thanks!

**Good Dog**

It's not like this after every full moon -- just the ones that are 'good', the ones that leave Remus exhausted but not badly injured. Good, Sirius thinks as he watches over the other boy, is relative. Tonight, he drowses beside him with a human body and a dog-like mind.

He isn't quite sure what it is -- it could be the reality that they can't go back to Hogwarts any longer, or knowledge of the quiet war that's starting to rage around them -- but lately he's found it harder and harder to let go of being Padfoot. It's simpler so much easier to be a dog than to be a man.

As he rests his head on his arm and watches the slow rise and fall of his lover's bruised chest, he wonders how he can feel so peaceful when nothing outside of this room is peaceful at all. Lily and James are scared, no one knows what's happened to Peter, and the wizard world's in turmoil -- and yet, tonight they're lying together like Muggles, and he's thinking of nothing but sleep and tomorrows. In some ways, they are Muggles -- they live in a Muggle flat, they cook and clean and live (for the most part) like normal people, and, he thinks with a smile, they're amazingly terrible at it. Or, at least, he is.

---

"We have absolutely no idea what we're doing," Remus had told him that afternoon, resting on the couch with a blanket over his legs and a book on his lap. "None at all."

"What do you mean?" Sirius honestly couldn't see anything wrong with the flat. Sure, it was a bit rundown, but what else could they have expected at that price?

And Remus just raised an eyebrow at him, like he knew that Sirius' reaction was the infamous Black pride at work, that Sirius simply couldn't admit that maybe he wasn't as handy around the house as he was with a wand in his hand.

"The ceiling's leaking," he said simply, taking the cup of tea that the other boy handed him before returning to his book. Sirius was sure that it must be an awfully boring book (most books, he believed, were), and so he promptly took it away and knelt beside the couch. Ignoring Remus' protests, he ran a hand down the pronounced bumps of the other boy's spine – they'd always felt so fragile, but he knew that they'd never fall apart. They're just so... "Remus," he said, and Remus laughed like it wasn't just the full moon and they didn't have a growing puddle on the living room floor. He laughed like everything was like it had been when they were still at school.

"Sirius," he said, just like Sirius knew that he was going to, "Sometimes I think that you're the biggest, shallowest idiot that I've ever met."

He knew that Remus didn't mean it in a bad way, and when lips met lips, he wondered why he shouldn't think that it was a compliment. Anyone could have said that he was a great lover, but when Remus said that he was an idiot, he knew that it was because Remus has been paying attention to something more than the sensation of skin against skin.

And knowing that made the Padfoot in Sirius practically wiggle with joy.

He thought that he must act doggier when it happened, because then Remus always smiled and told him that he was also an egocentric troublemaker.

As they laid together on the couch, drinking tea and pulling the blanket up around their shoulders, Sirius could hardly believe that he had been blessed with someone so wonderful, even if he was a bit strange and fuzzy and unnaturally scholarly.

Finally, though, he had to move and cover the hole with a towel and duct-tape – "Wonderful stuff," Sirius said, "The best invention that the Muggles ever came up with," and Remus grinned at him -- and then wait to go back to bed, which, he though, is where he and Remus really belonged.

---

Tonight, lying as still as possible and listening to the shallow breathing of the one he loves, Sirius wonders if this can really not be heaven. It doesn't seem to matter if no one will employ Remus because they only see the monster, not the Moony who can be pacified by and played with by Padfoot, and he wonders why there are curses going off in the dark and people trembling in fear as he stays, warm and comforted, with Remus.

James was right, he thinks -- I am a good dog.

He isn't elegant and royal like the stag -- he isn't like James, majestic and hopeful, and he isn't like Lily, with all of her fire and her sweetness. He isn't even like the baby that they love so much but haven't met. Nor is he skittish and petty like the rat, like Peter who has wandered gone so far away that they can barely even recognize him anymore.

Most of all, he's not like the wolf, deadly and pedigreed. He's wild, but he's not like Remus. As long as Remus loves him for who he is, he doesn't think that it matters very much. Either way, he's a good dog, and a good man, if his animal form shows his true self.

But when it comes down to who's the better person, Remus is the pure-blood and he's the mud-blood, and he can't find it in him to be upset about it when he's just thinking about them. It's something that he's known since the first day that he saw Remus, and his impression hasn't changed.

Gently, he shakes Remus, and immediately regrets it when the other boy opens sleepy eyes -- it's still too close to the full moon, it's still too close to when he was last Padfoot, and maybe that's why he's thinking his way. Maybe he'll act like more of a man and less of a dog later, but he thinks that it really must be said now, even if it is after midnight. He knows that he's never been much of a long-term planner, anyway, and so he thinks that it's all right.

"I love you," he says, smoothing Remus' light hair away from his face. "I really, really love you, no matter what happens."

Yes, he thinks as the other boy's eyes shine with pleasure, I am a good dog, and almost as good of a man. Please, God, never let me lose him.

"Oh... Sirius," Remus says it like it's nothing at all and holds back a yawn, smiling gently, "I know that. I love you, too."

And then Sirius simply has to squirm with joy and kiss Remus square on the mouth at one in the morning because there is simply no feeling as wonderful as that of being young and adored.

Some days, he wishes that he could remain a dog forever, guarding the side of the most wonderful boy in the world, but then he remembers that tomorrow he has to fix the roof. Suddenly, thumbs seem like the second most important thing that to have besides love, and, anyway, there are a lot more uses for thumbs than just fixing things.

He drowses in the weary glow of the bathroom night-light, waiting for sleep to return as he holds Remus against his chest. Someday, Sirius prays, dream might become reality and the war will burn out – someday, he wishes, everything everywhere will be the way that it is in this room tonight. And as waking dreams meld seamlessly into sleep, he realizes that he's never been quite this happy before -- and, somehow, he knows that when they're together, Remus feels the same way.


End file.
